jack-tar

American

[jak-tahr] / ˈdʒækˈtɑr /

Or Jack Tar

noun

a sailor.

Jack Tar British

noun

literary a sailor

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of jack-tar

First recorded in 1775–85

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Not many days are required to restore Shiloh to his best blithe spirits and make of him an astonishingly tough and adept jack-tar.

From Time Magazine Archive

He came down in a few minutes, having donned his best jack-tar suit, and holding out a pretty sealskin purse to Bet.

From A Girl of the People by Meade, L. T.

Somehow it has come to be supposed or assumed that a jack-tar cannot ride.

From Charlie to the Rescue by Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael)

Splendid jack-tar as he was, no one could be more thoroughly disagreeable than Isaac Dent when things, as he expressed it, "went agin' him."

From A Girl of the People by Meade, L. T.

Harry bowed like a gentleman, Mr. Stanley like a jack-tar.

From Elinor Wyllys, Volume 2 by Cooper, Susan Fenimore

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023